


When Someone Cheats

by Batsymomma11



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Angry Bruce Wayne, Best Friends, Cheating, Clark Tells the Truth, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Protective Clark Kent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 20:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsymomma11/pseuds/Batsymomma11
Summary: Infidelity is never easy to encounter, least of all when it's someone you thought you were in love with. Bruce finds out the hard way that Selina isn't trustworthy.





	When Someone Cheats

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot with best friends going over a failing relationship. Not all of it is canon. I don't own DC or their characters. I do own the story.  
> Enjoy!

There was something oddly cold and precise about the way Bruce studied the scribbled note. He ran a fingertip over the lines of looped handwriting, eyes following, mind conjuring the image of Selina quickly jotting down an excuse as to why she wasn’t home.

                Why she was late.

                But he couldn’t quite make the image stick. He couldn’t quite get the picture to materialize.

                Because it felt ingenuine to do so.

                Bruce frowned down at the note, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted coppery blood then gave in and crushed the paper into a tight ball.

                Selina wasn’t out with friends. She hadn’t forgotten something at the store. She wasn’t running one more errand.

                She wasn’t here, because she was where she’d been off and on for the last two months. Another man’s bed.

                And he couldn’t even bring himself to find out who.

                Bruce’s right eye twitched as he smoothed both hands down the front of his suit jacket. He’d not changed after getting in over an hour late to the manor. She hadn’t waited long for him before running. He supposed he shouldn’t have expected anything less of her.

                He grabbed the tumbler of scotch from the second drawer of his desk and nipped a short glass off the tray left by the study door. Bruce was already peeling out of his jacket and doffing his shoes and socks before his thoughts had a chance to fully settle. Calm, cool, and collected on the exterior, a snarl of knots within, he moved like liquid out the large bay windows, keeping a firm grip on his scotch.

                Alfred would come around shortly looking for him but wouldn’t find him.

                Bruce didn’t care. He needed to be alone anyways.

                Climbing to the roof was simple work for a man that climbed buildings and grappled over heights that should be stomach turning. When he reached the roof, he ambled carefully over to his usual perch where the roof met one of the manor’s chimneys and he settled his back into the brick. It felt cool through his dress shirt and he dug his bare feet into the rough roof to keep his balance.

                He’d been coming up here for as long as he could remember. He’d traded stolen cigarettes for expensive scotch, but the end result was just the same.

                He came here to brood. To pity himself. Occasionally to cry, should he be feeling particularly low.

                Tonight, he considered anything was possible.

                Eyes scathing, Bruce poured a hefty amount of scotch into the glass and started in with relish.

                It burned going down his throat and was a welcome distraction from the ache that pressed in from all sides. He’d downed a full glass and was onto his second when he heard the flutter of a cape in the summer breeze.

                Bruce had no interest in seeing anyone. Let alone him.

                “Nice night.”

                “Go away Clark.”

                “Alfred called.”

                “I don’t want company,” Bruce was vaguely aware of the fact that his speech was already becoming stuttered and slow. His ass was half-asleep from sitting on the hard roof and his feet prickled but he had no intention of moving. Or sharing his hard-earned solitude. He wanted to do this alone.

                “Come on, Bruce,” Clark settled down beside him, his heat foreign and absurd in this space.

                Bruce blinked to clear the hazy image of blue and red, of a man who looked more poster than human, then growled deep in his throat. “I didn’t say you could sit.”

                “You didn’t need to. If you’re up here. It’s bad.”

                “No, it’s my own business. I don’t want to talk. I need to be alone.”

                “You always say that.”

                “Maybe because it’s true.”

                “Bruce, stop—” Clark grabbed at the scotch bottle as Bruce tried to fill his glass for the third time. Or was it the fourth? He was losing count. And despite the show, Bruce Wayne wasn’t particularly good at holding his liquor. He had a very low tolerance for alcohol. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

                “Good.”

                “You don’t mean that,” Clark said softly, annoyingly as he pried the bottle from Bruce’s frigid grip. “Talk to me.”

                Bruce gave up on the scotch and instead folded into himself, wrapping both arms over his knees to support his sagging weight. “It’s none of your business.”

                “Is it the boys?”

                “No. Clark—.”

                “Work? Batman?”

                “No, Clark, just—.”

                “Selina then.”

                Bruce’s mouth flattened before he could stop it, a rough swallow working its way down his throat. With the alcohol running like grease throughs his veins, he was feeling more willing to talk than he wanted to. He would share if it weren’t so humiliating. If it didn’t sting so very badly.

                “What’s happened?”

                The air was cooler now that it was dark and Bruce felt himself shiver, his thoughts pulling to another part of town that he didn’t want them to be. He could imagine how she was with him. How she would push all the right buttons, say all the right words. Walk her fingers up his chest and into his hair. How she would push him down onto the mattress and promise him the world. Hell, she would give it. She would make him feel like there was no one else. There would never be anyone else that could make her feel like that.

                Bruce’s throat tightened painfully and he struggled to dispel the images that threatened to make him sick. His stomach cramped and he vaguely wondered if vomit would be a struggle to clean off of a roof. Alfred would kill him.

                “It’s nothing.”

                “She’s hurt you.”

                Bruce blinked over at Clark, teeth clicking together to prevent words from spilling. Truths that even he didn’t want to say out loud.

                “Is she—is she cheating on you?”

                The words felt far too simple when said like that. Far too easy. It wasn’t simple. It wasn’t easy. It was messy. It was painful. It was like having something gut him and laugh in his face. Why the fuck had he trusted her? Why had he thought that she would be interested in only being with him? Why hadn’t he talked to her about it and made the lines more clear?

                He’d been a coward. He’d been ashamed at first, unsure of himself and positive he was wrong. Then there’d been too much deny. The scent of another man’s cologne on her skin. The mark of another man’s lips in places he knew he’d not touched. Because he remembered everything. He couldn’t help that it was photographically imprinted. Each touch and kiss and word. He remembered it all.

                But he knew that he wasn’t the only one sleeping with her. And yet…Bruce had been too stunned. Too shell-shocked and hurt to do much more than pray it would end on its own. Or that he was somehow wrong. But when was the ‘world’s greatest detective’ ever wrong?

                Weren’t they happy? Wasn’t she getting enough from him already? Didn’t she see he’d been giving everything he could? That he’d been falling in love with her? His heart already wrapped up in whatever they’d been building?

                But they hadn’t been the only ones building.

                He’d only been delaying the inevitable.

                “It’s fine.”

                The words were choked and sharp. Bitter.

                “Bruce, look at me?” Clark’s voice felt far away, beneath an ocean of scotch and misery and Bruce struggled to obey. When he did, he wished that he hadn’t. Pity was worse. Someone feeling crappy for you when you were already feeling crappy compounded the situation and Bruce didn’t like the feeling.

                “Stop that.”

                “Stop caring?”

                “Yes. It’s too much to handle right now. I don’t need to feel your feelings too.”

                Clark frowned, lines pressing deep into his forehead as he reached for Bruce’s arm and gripped him hard. “I’m sorry.”

                “Don’t be,” Bruce shrugged off the hand, “I was a fool for getting involved with her. I should have seen this coming. I should have—done something.”

                “You can’t take responsibility for that. You don’t do that.”

                “Why?” Bruce snapped, angry now, happy to have someplace to vent the frustration and ineptitude. “Because it’s not my fault?”

                “No, it’s not.”

                “Because I couldn’t have seen it coming a mile away?”

                “No one expects to be cheated on you couldn’t--.”

                “I did see it Clark!” Bruce growls, voice dropping to a strangled whisper, those angry aforementioned tears starting to rise in his throat, “I knew she wasn’t being faithful. I’ve known for weeks. I just didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to believe it.”

                Clark’s frame was rigid, his eyes burning holes into the roof, “You couldn’t have done anything. This is all on her.”

                “Yes, well,” Bruce whispered now, his anger suddenly sucked away in favor of those piteous tears. He swiped casually at them, destroying the evidence with a sniff, “It doesn’t really fucking matter in the end. It’s over.”

                “That’s probably for the best.”

                Bruce shrugged a shoulder, “It doesn’t feel like it.”

                “No, I don’t imagine it does.”

                They sat silent for several long minutes, the breeze picking up over the woods to brush the scents of evergreens and saplings over them. Bruce leaned into the smell, forcing his thoughts to empty, desperate to forget about the green eyes that were even now looking at someone else.

                “It’s getting cold.”

                “A little,” Bruce mused, eyes still closed, body sagging into the brick chimney. “I don’t want to move.”

                A pair of arms, warm and solid wrapped around him and Bruce sighed into them. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a hugger. That he didn’t particularly care for it. With Clark, he’d been forced to accept them as a sign of friendship and comfort since they’d met in junior high. It was familiar and oddly welcome.

                “Clark?” Bruce mumbled into the collar pressed to his nose.

                “Hmmm?”

                “Why do you stink?”

                Clark laughed, “I just got finished helping a crabbing boat in Alaska. Why? Don’t like seafood?”

                Bruce wrinkled his nose, drawing back to look at his friend at arms length, “Not when it’s stale and secondhand. You need a shower.”

                “It’s late. I could use a bed to crash on. Think Alfred would let me use a guest room?”

                Bruce snorted, “Clark, if you wanted to sleepover, you didn’t need to find an angle. You could have just asked.”

                He shrugged, “I didn’t think you’d let me. I know you don’t like it when I hover.”

                “Tonight, I’m drunk enough I don’t care.”

                Clark smiled, a touch sad and a lot warm, “I know.”

                Chucking Bruce’s chin with a fist, Clark said nothing when Bruce struggled down the side of the roof and back onto the balcony. He didn’t help, nor did he try to warn him when it was obvious that he was weaving. He knew Bruce well enough to let the man do as he wanted. Even if it meant possibly falling four stories to the ground.

                Inside, Clark walked companionably by his side, a silent red and blue figure. Hero to all. Friend to few. Best friend to one.

                Clark helped Bruce slip into his bed, tucking him in like a mother hen, despite the swatting and growling.

                “Get out.”

                “I’m going.”

                “Then what are you waiting for?” Bruce grouched, rolling over onto a side to peer angrily up at Clark. His eyes were shadowed in the dark and looked black.

                “If you need me, I’ll be just down the hall.”

                “Thanks Dad, I’ll be fine.”

                “Bruce, even if you weren’t, that would be alright.”

                Bruce looked at him with narrowed eyes, a stubborn lift of his chin, despite laying down, then nodded briskly. “I know.”

                “OK. Goodnight.”

                “Goodnight Clark.”

                Clark left Bruce’s room and kept an ear out for the telltale snore that drifted to him only a handful of minutes later. When he was certain that Bruce was completely asleep, he slipped back out the window for one more thing. He had a certain Cat to visit before turning in for the night. There were some things that needed to be said.


End file.
